Dr. Jan Wilkens

The Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook 2024 provides a unique systematic and global assessment of the context conditions for sustainable climate change adaptation, evaluating the social dynamics of deep decarbonization and the physical dynamics in regional climate variability and extremes.

In this Perspective, we summarize the findings of our assessment and discuss implications for climate action. In our most recent Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook, we conduct an assessment of the plausibility conditions for sustainable climate change adaptation across the world, and identify a number of missing elements.

The Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (CLICCS), based at Universität Hamburg, is guided by the overarching question: "Which climate futures are possible and which are plausible?" This GIGA co-led project in the cluster's second phase aims to enhance the use of near-term climate predictions through the use of narratives, where effective narratives are not only founded in climate dynamics, but - through an iterative process - co-created with societal actors.
DFG, Excellence Strategy, 2026-2032

This chapter critiques the notion of social transformation through the concept of social tipping points, using a post-colonial lens on norms research to emphasize the epistemological and ontological diversity often ignored in climate governance, while reinforcing teleological narratives of change.

This article addresses the broader question of the special issue by reflecting on the coloniality of knowledge production in a context of global climate governance. The article asks how to develop a decolonial approach to researching climate justice in order to identify the meaning-in-use of climate justice in the Arctic and the Mediterranean region.

The Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook 2024 provides a unique systematic and global assessment of the context conditions for sustainable climate change adaptation, evaluating the social dynamics of deep decarbonization and the physical dynamics in regional climate variability and extremes.

In this Perspective, we summarize the findings of our assessment and discuss implications for climate action. In our most recent Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook, we conduct an assessment of the plausibility conditions for sustainable climate change adaptation across the world, and identify a number of missing elements.

The Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (CLICCS), based at Universität Hamburg, is guided by the overarching question: "Which climate futures are possible and which are plausible?" This GIGA co-led project in the cluster's second phase aims to enhance the use of near-term climate predictions through the use of narratives, where effective narratives are not only founded in climate dynamics, but - through an iterative process - co-created with societal actors.
DFG, Excellence Strategy, 2026-2032